By

Jaafar Jaafar

Whenever “human development” is being
debated, the logical way to base the arguments on, or the best platform
to anchor the discussion on, is the United Nations Development Programme,
UNDP’s paradigm. UNDP’s primary interest lies in how a state serves its
people. According to UNDP report, the five aspects to sustainable human
development – all affecting the lives of the poor and vulnerable – are:
empowerment, co-operation, equity, sustainability and security. Our
expectations were that Shekarau administration would execute its human
development project along this conventional line.

In his maiden speech that sounded more of
a sermon on the 29th of May 2003, the Governor of Kano State,
Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, rhapsodized about the virtues of human
development and promised rather emphatically that “human development
will be the priority” of his government. Expectedly, the cleverly
crafted speech leaves the people at fever pitch. Methinks the “human
development” project will be centered on the social welfare of the
common man, and be more responsive to the poor than the venal elite. But
alas, that was however not to be.

Someone says paying salary and giving some
fringe benefits when the occasion so demands is the “human development”.
I bluntly disagreed with his pedestrian notion. But before you take me
guillotine lets try some illustrative example to make my points clear.
Under Shekarau’s “human development,” a civil servant with a take-home
pay of say N10,000, gets less than N3,000 “ram bonus” (or
is it foetus bonus) a year. But the painful paradox, however, is that
the same civil servant spends about N3,000 monthly to buy water
and a couple of thousands for healthcare (forget quality education which
he can’t afford). What I am saying here is that if government would have
the wisdom to withdraw “ram bonus” and provide water, affordable
healthcare and quality education, wouldn’t that civil servant be better
off? After all, eliminating poverty is OBLIGATION not privilege let
alone paying salary.

In her speech at lecture to commemorate
the 10th year anniversary of the Nigeria’s National Human
Rights Commission, Professor Jadesola Akande says that poor people “are
afflicted with hunger, malnutrition, ill-health, unsanitary housing and
living conditions and often without much education, they do not have the
resources to overcome these afflictions. Nor does the society provide
the means for them to overcome these afflictions.”

Did Shekarau’s human development “overcome
these afflictions” as this former university administrator challenged
those in authority? For about four years of being carefully tutored to
understand Shekarau’s “human development” project, this writer still
feels none the wiser. Actually Shekarau administration has a way of
defining its vague and hazy policies in copious guises. This “project,”
I am afraid, is all Greek to me.

Sometimes I wonder if the project means
embezzling public funds to pay for umrah or hajj ‘chairs’ gratis to
politicians, elite clerics and aristocrats who have been there several
times over. It is known to all Muslims that it is obligatory for them to
observe pilgrimage, with affordability proviso, once in their lifetime
as contained in the Articles of Faith. Islam did not say government must
or should sponsor hajj! Islam, in its infinite simplicity and wisdom,
enjoins the believers to persistently provide care for orphans and
parents because such gesture “attracts the reward Allah giveth to a
pilgrim,” Sheik Ibrahim Khalil recently said. If a person can not
afford, it is not binding on him/her. Now, you might ask, why can’t the
State lawmakers make law for the abolishment of this jamboree? They
can’t, I am told. Each member of the State House of Assembly gets two
slots every year. District Heads of all the 44 local governments of the
state get slots; the religious teachers get countless slots. The height
of this playing ducks and drakes with public funds is that top
government officials get you-and-your-family package (in this
freeloading entourage, mainly you can see underage and pregnant women).
To consolidate the gains of the “human development” project, this year
alone, about three thousand pilgrims were at public expense! Have you
fixed the roads that directly affect our well-being? Or, have you
provided the affordable healthcare that is the elixir of our existence,
the quality education that is needed for our development, the potable
water that is good to our health? Not a scintilla of one is in
significant proportion in Kano State today.

Who says provision of these is not part of
shariah? Has the government rolled back malaria, typhoid, cholera or
other curable maladies affecting our society? Can’t this huge amount of
money bring about a considerable change to our life if spent correctly?
Can’t this huge amount relieve thousands from distress? How many people
do we have in our neighborhoods that tearfully watch their wives to die
in labour pain because they can not afford emergency Caesarean section?
Can’t this huge amount of money being spent on the elite (who are rich
enough to foot our bill) improve the lives of the have-nots? But what
has the government achieved in education to make the masses understand
that this is wholly a case of misgovernance but not religious
obligation? Nil, I dare say.

A survey conducted last year by a medical
team from Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, AKTH, shows that 3,974 deaths
occur in every 100,000 births in Kano State. The figures, the survey
noted, surpassed the earlier 1,500 deaths produced by a survey in 1972.
The Kano State coordinator of the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity
Programme, Dr Hadiza Galadanci, concluded that Eclampsia, the
newly discovered leading cause of maternal mortality is preventable with
adequate medical attention.

Only recently, a medical doctor versed in
public health commentary, Dr Aminu Magashi, lamented about the state of
the healthcare delivery in Kano State. In a paper delivered at Press
Centre, Kano, Magashi says: “Development which is about improving
people’s life could be measured by assessing Maternal Mortality Ratio,
Under Five Mortality Rate and life expectancy at birth.” He added that
he had “traversed all the 44 LGAs of Kano and have first hand
information about the sorry state of those (primary health) centers” His
conclusion is a damning indictment of the present administration. Said
he rather sincerely: “the Primary Health Centers are almost in total
collapse. …They are decorated with expired drugs, dilapidated
structures, corrugated roofs…” All I am saying here is that sponsoring
hajj is not the priority of the common man. Health is the PARAMOUNT. The
prodigal government can do whatever its whimsical instinct deems ‘right’
when these mortal problems are solved! Or, when common man’s children
are not consigned to selling fuel by the roadside or conscripted into
political thuggery, but given good education, at least the like of which
they use public funds to give their children. UNDP report says that the
expansion of capabilities and opportunities means more than income – it
also means equity, such as an educational system to which everybody
should have access! Where, one would argue, lies the logic of any “human
development” or shariah that does not promote equity? Why would this
much-celebrated “human development” initiative trample on the
fundamental welfarist nature of shariah as canvassed in the Glorious
Qur’an and Sunnah but rather promote such wastage?

Where lies the wisdom
of any development project that can not construct a single kilometer of
a new road (not rehabilitation) in almost four years of its existence?
Shekarau administration, confirmed the deputy governor of Kano State,
Engr Magaji Abdullahi on Freedom Radio, did not construct a
single new road! Why, despite this much-celebrated “human development”
project, Kano still tops the poverty index of the country?